Advertising spend fell hard in February compared to a bumper month last year boosted by government commercials for COVID related communication.
Standard Media Index (SMI) numbers from media agency bookings show the local market down 8.5%, mostly due to a 50% fall in government category ad spend.
The underlying decline was 5.5%, taking government bookings out. February 2022 was also lifted by the broadcast of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Jane Ractliffe, SMI AU/NZ managing director: "Australia’s ad market received an abnormal boost from record high levels of Government category ad spend throughout 2022 and that’s now a key reason why we’re seeing softer demand this year.
Radio fell 7.8% in February but without the government spend impact it grew 0.4%.
"And the trend will continue until May as the extra COVID-related Government ad spend was further amplified ahead of last year’s Federal election," she says.
SMI, with government category ad spend excluded, is reporting good results in February for the outdoor media (+17.9%) and Cinema (+50.9%) but TV was mostly impacted by last year’s Olympics broadcast.
Ractliffe said it was also important to recognise the unusual size of last year’s February ad spend total, as it was more than $30 million larger than the next strongest February month in 2019 and more than 10%, or $60.5 million, above the February 2021 total.
"And this trend of huge prior year months will also continue into March as the market reported yet another record high for that month with the total up 12.1% on the March 2021 total and 4.1% higher than the previous record March set in 2019,’’ she said.
Growth categories in February included Automotive Brand advertisers returning to growth (+6.5%) and Travel continues to rebuild, up 10.3%.
But the market remains strong over the eight months of the financial year with total bookings still in record territory, having lifted 1.5% on the same period last year.
So far this year Retail has grown 6.6%, Auto Brand is up 16.9% and Insurance 7%.
Travel has emerged as the sixth largest category after delivering an 80% increase in ad spend.
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